Wouter Bessels

Dutch journalist, author, archivist of musical heritage and sound engineer. Born on 9 October 1977 in Hoorn, the Netherlands. In his day job he works for Dutch newspaper Dagblad Van Het Noorden (DVHN) but he also writes for music magazine iO Pages and other international publications. He regularly does (re)mastering jobs on archival releases, e.g. for Pseudonym and Red Bullet. Since 2001 he is the biographer and archivist for guitarist Jan Akkerman. In early 2018, he compiled and mastered the 26xCD box set The Complete Jan Akkerman, released on 20th July 2018. In 2019, Bessels wrote the accompanying book, researched material and provided additional editing, pre-mastering and compilation assistance for In Search Of Hades (The Virgin Recordings 1973-1979), followed in 2020 by Pilots of Purple Twilight: The Virgin Recordings 1980–1983. As the official archivist of Tangerine Dream, he has curated several archival releases with live recordings for various labels, such as Culture Factory, Esoteric and KScope. In 2020 he curated and produced the 9xCD + 2xDVD box set 50 Years: Anthology 1970-1976, regarded as the definitive Focus box set of the band's classic years, featuring previously unreleased audio and video recordings. Bessels has also curated several remastered & expanded albums of Golden Earring, Solution, Shocking Blue, Nova and Stars On 45 and has written several books on Pink Floyd and Steven Wilson / Porcupine Tree. As such he has also collaborated on Sony's recent Pink Floyd releases.